twitter's Journal: Universites Dread Vista Invasion.

Universities are are not looking forward to a host of Vista bugs as students have little choice but to arrive with the OS on their new computers.

[Northeastern IT security manager Glenn Hill] says students and faculty will surely have trouble navigating the new controls. The problems could result in an increase in calls to the information services department... Northeastern has run into compatibility problems between the new operating system and some of its crucial applications. ... Vista's format also conflicted with Northeastern's authentication policy.

Hill and Atoofi [Brown University] found that Vista lacked a lot of backward compatibility in general, and there have also been licensing problems. ... they're bracing for the inevitable calls for help from users who smack head-on into some of Vista's security walls [like losing bitlocker PINs and AV not working]. "The support period for older versions of Windows is getting narrower and narrower," he said. "Microsoft will eventually stop supporting Windows XP, so we'll all have to have Vista."

Overall the article was a M$ apology because it ignored Vista's unacceptable performance and assumed the inconveniences were driven by real security improvements. We'll be hearing more about these issues soon. Vista might suck up the majority of helpdesk time, but I don't think there is going to be any "flood" of Vista because people are not buying it.